Disaster Risk Reduction National Platform and Strategic National Action Plan in Afghanistan

Abstract

On February 28th 2010, Afghanistan launched its first National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction. This Platform was established with bottom-up approach which ensured representation from various stakeholders were in place while keeping the central function to be coordinated by the country's mandated agency, Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority. One of the first activities undertaken by the Platform was to establish Strategic National Action Plan for Disaster Risk Reduction for Afghanistan. This Strategic National Action Plan is focusing on DRR with the link with peace building and a stable development. The SNAP has six objectives-with three under each goal. To attain the six objectives, the Action Plan consists of seven major programmes/projects that serve to link the related on-going and future actions/activities within the Afghanistan National Development Strategy framework. The main factor of success for establishment of the National DRR Platform and SNAP was its participatory approach which enabled DRR Platform members to feel there is ``mutual benefit{''} by participating in the coronation structure and its future plan. SNAP is 93 page document which articulates specific projects under each specific objectives, and implementation is expected to be conducted by the National DRR Platform members; a motivation factor indeed to be part of the process. Despite above successes, there were also challenges. The first challenge was how to create enabling environment to implement SNAP, in financial sense. As all members of DRR Platform were fully engaged in establishing SNAP, the fundraising aspect was left for several agencies to handle. The lesson from this challenge would be that fundraising is done simultaneously as the establishment of the plan because after plan is made, environment needs to be there to actually implement it. Additionally, there are lessons to be learnt from organizational perspective. Ensuring continuity in momentum and facilitation would require continued investment from coordinating organization in terms of financial, human resource, and general dedication by the organization's senior management. The world is moving towards putting more emphasis on DRR. To ensure that the next phase of international DRR framework (HFA2) achieve the intended results, underlying risk factors need to be tackled with strategic partnership among different parts of the society. For this, example of bottom-up approach to coordinate DRR efforts in Afghanistan can be a reference to establish such strategic partnerships in the region.